Deuteronomy 6: 6-7 NIV — from biblegateway.com

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

 

 

From DSC:
To set the stage for the following reflections…first, an excerpt from
Climate researcher claims CIA asked about weaponized weather: What could go wrong? — from computerworld.com (emphasis DSC)

We’re not talking about chemtrails, HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) or other weather warfare that has been featured in science fiction movies; the concerns were raised not a conspiracy theorist, but by climate scientist, geoengineering specialist and Rutgers University Professor Alan Robock. He “called on secretive government agencies to be open about their interest in radical work that explores how to alter the world’s climate.” If emerging climate-altering technologies can effectively alter the weather, Robock is “worried about who would control such climate-altering technologies.”

 

Exactly what I’ve been reflecting on recently.

***Who*** is designing, developing, and using the powerful technologies that are coming into play these days and ***for what purposes?***

Do these individuals care about other people?  Or are they much more motivated by profit or power?

Given the increasingly potent technologies available today, we need people who care about other people. 

Let me explain where I’m coming from here…

I see technologies as tools.  For example, a pencil is a technology. On the positive side of things, it can be used to write or draw something. On the negative side of things, it could be used as a weapon to stab someone.  It depends upon the user of the pencil and what their intentions are.

Let’s look at some far more powerful — and troublesome — examples.

 



DRONES

Drones could be useful…or they could be incredibly dangerous. Again, it depends on who is developing/programming them and for what purpose(s).  Consider the posting from B.J. Murphy below (BTW, nothing positive or negative is meant by linking to this item, per se).

DARPA’s Insect and Bird Drones Are On Their Way — from proactiontranshuman.wordpress.com by B.J. Murphy

.

Insect drone

From DSC:
I say this is an illustrative posting because if the inventor/programmer of this sort of drone wanted to poison someone, they surely could do so. I’m not even sure that this drone exists or not; it doesn’t matter, as we’re quickly heading that way anyway.  So potentially, this kind of thing is very scary stuff.

We need people who care about other people.

Or see:
Five useful ideas from the World Cup of Drones — from  dezeen.com
The article mentions some beneficial purposes of drones, such as for search and rescue missions or for assessing water quality.  Some positive intentions, to be sure.

But again, it doesn’t take too much thought to come up with some rather frightening counter-examples.
 

 

GENE-RELATED RESEARCH

Or another example re: gene research/applications; an excerpt from:

Turning On Genes, Systematically, with CRISPR/Cas9 — from by genengnews.com
Scientists based at MIT assert that they can reliably turn on any gene of their choosing in living cells.

Excerpt:

It was also suggested that large-scale screens such as the one demonstrated in the current study could help researchers discover new cancer drugs that prevent tumors from becoming resistant.

From DSC:
Sounds like there could be some excellent, useful, positive uses for this technology.  But who is to say which genes should be turned on and under what circumstances? In the wrong hands, there could be some dangerous uses involved in such concepts as well.  Again, it goes back to those involved with designing, developing, selling, using these technologies and services.

 

ROBOTICS

Will robots be used for positive or negative applications?

The mechanized future of warfare — from theweek.com
OR
Atlas Unplugged: The six-foot-two humanoid robot that might just save your life — from zdnet.com
Summary:From the people who brought you the internet, the latest version of the Atlas robot will be used in its disaster-fighting robotic challenge.

 

atlasunpluggedtorso

 

AUTONOMOUS CARS

How Uber’s autonomous cars will destroy 10 million jobs and reshape the economy by 2025 — from sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com by

Excerpt:

Autonomous cars will be commonplace by 2025 and have a near monopoly by 2030, and the sweeping change they bring will eclipse every other innovation our society has experienced. They will cause unprecedented job loss and a fundamental restructuring of our economy, solve large portions of our environmental problems, prevent tens of thousands of deaths per year, save millions of hours with increased productivity, and create entire new industries that we cannot even imagine from our current vantage point.

One can see the potential for good and for bad from the above excerpt alone.

Or Ford developing cross country automotive remote control — from spectrum.ieee.org

 

Ford-RemoteCtrl-Feb-2015

Or Germany has approved the use of self driving cars on Autobahn A9 Route — from wtvox.com

While the above items list mostly positive elements, there are those who fear that autonomous cars could be used by terrorists. That is, could a terrorist organization make some adjustments to such self-driving cars and load them up with explosives, then remotely control them in order to drive them to a certain building or event and cause them to explode?

Again, it depends upon whether the designers and users of a system care about other people.

 

BIG DATA / AI / COGNITIVE COMPUTING

The rise of machines that learn — from infoworld.com by Eric Knorr; with thanks to Oliver Hansen for his tweet on this
A new big data analytics startup, Adatao, reminds us that we’re just at the beginning of a new phase of computing when systems become much, much smarter

Excerpt:

“Our warm and creepy future,” is how Miko refers to the first-order effect of applying machine learning to big data. In other words, through artificially intelligent analysis of whatever Internet data is available about us — including the much more detailed, personal stuff collected by mobile devices and wearables — websites and merchants of all kinds will become extraordinarily helpful. And it will give us the willies, because it will be the sort of personalized help that can come only from knowing us all too well.

 

Privacy is dead: How Twitter and Facebook are exposing you — from finance.yahoo.com

Excerpt:

They know who you are, what you like, and how you buy things. Researchers at MIT have matched up your Facebook (FB) likes, tweets, and social media activity with the products you buy. The results are a highly detailed and accurate profile of how much money you have, where you go to spend it and exactly who you are.

The study spanned three months and used the anonymous credit card data of 1.1 million people. After gathering the data, analysts would marry the findings to a person’s public online profile. By checking things like tweets and Facebook activity, researchers found out the anonymous person’s actual name 90% of the time.

 

iBeacon, video analysis top 2015 tech trends — from progressivegrocer.com

Excerpt:

Using digital to engage consumers will make the store a more interesting and – dare I say – fun place to shop. Such an enhanced in-store experience leads to more customer loyalty and a bigger basket at checkout. It also gives supermarkets a competitive edge over nearby stores not equipped with the latest technology.

Using video cameras in the ceilings of supermarkets to record shopper behavior is not new. But more retailers will analyze and use the resulting data this year. They will move displays around the store and perhaps deploy new traffic patterns that follow a shopper’s true path to purchase. The result will be increased sales.

Another interesting part of this video analysis that will become more important this year is facial recognition. The most sophisticated cameras are able to detect the approximate age and ethnicity of shoppers. Retailers will benefit from knowing, say, that their shopper base includes more Millennials and Hispanics than last year. Such valuable information will change product assortments.

Scientists join Elon Musk & Stephen Hawking, warn of dangerous AI — from rt.com

Excerpt:

Hundreds of leading scientists and technologists have joined Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk in warning of the potential dangers of sophisticated artificial intelligence, signing an open letter calling for research on how to avoid harming humanity.

The open letter, drafted by the Future of Life Institute and signed by hundreds of academics and technologists, calls on the artificial intelligence science community to not only invest in research into making good decisions and plans for the future, but to also thoroughly check how those advances might affect society.

 

 

SMART/ CONNECTED TVs

 



Though there are many other examples, I think you get the point.

That biblical idea of loving our neighbors as ourselves…well, as you can see,
that idea is as highly applicable, important, and relevant today as it ever was.



 

 

Addendum on 3/19/15 that gets at exactly the same thing here:

  • Teaching robots to be moral — from newyorker.com by Gary Marcus
    Excerpt:
    Robots and advanced A.I. could truly transform the world for the better—helping to cure cancer, reduce hunger, slow climate change, and give all of us more leisure time. But they could also make things vastly worse, starting with the displacement of jobs and then growing into something closer to what we see in dystopian films. When we think about our future, it is vital that we try to understand how to make robots a force for good rather than evil.

 

 

Addendum on 3/20/15:

 

Jennifer A. Doudna, an inventor of a new genome-editing technique, in her office at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Doudna is the lead author of an article calling for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new method, to give scientists, ethicists and the public time to fully understand the issues surrounding the breakthrough.
Credit Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times

 

1 Corinthians 13 (NIV) — from biblegateway.com

1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

 

From DSC:
Many K-12 schools as well as colleges and universities have been implementing more collaborative learning spaces. Amongst other things, such spaces encourage communication and collaboration — which involve listening. So here are some resources re: listening — a skill that’s not only underrated, but one that we don’t often try to consciously develop and think about in school. Perhaps in our quest for designing more meta-cognitive approaches to learning, we should consider how each of us and our students are actually listening…or not.


 

Mackay: The power of listening — from startribune.com by Harvey Mackay

Excerpts:

We are born with two ears, but only one mouth. Some people say that’s because we should spend twice as much time listening. Others claim it’s because listening is twice as difficult as talking.

Whatever the reason, developing good listening skills is critical to success. There is a difference between hearing and listening.

These statistics, gathered from sources including the International Listening Association* website, really drive the point home. They also demonstrate how difficult listening can be:

  • 85 percent of our learning is derived from listening.
  • Listeners are distracted, forgetful and preoccupied 75 percent of the time.
  • Most listeners recall only 50 percent of what they have heard immediately after hearing someone say it.
  • People spend 45 percent of their waking time ­listening.
  • Most people remember only about 20 percent of what they hear over time.
  • People listen up to 450 words per minute, but think at about 1,000 to 3,000 words per minute.
  • There have been at least 35 business studies indicating listening as a top skill needed for success.

 

From the International Listening Association*
LISTENING AND EDUCATION

  • Even though most of us spend the majority of our day listening, it is the communication activity that receives the least instruction in school (Coakley & Wolvin, 1997). Listening training is not required at most universities (Wacker & Hawkins, 1995). Students who are required to take a basic communication course spend less than 7% of class and text time on listening (Janusik, 2002; Janusik & Wolvin, 2002). If students aren’t trained in listening, how do we expect them to improve their listening?
  • Listening is critical to academic success. An entire freshman class of over 400 students was given a listening test at the beginning of their first semester. After their first year of studies, 49% of students scoring low on the listening test were on academic probation, while only 4.42% of those scoring high on the listening test were on academic probation. Conversely, 68.5% of those scoring high on the listening test were considered Honors Students after the first year, while only 4.17% of those scoring low attained the same success (Conaway, 1982).
  • Students do not have a clear concept of listening as an active process that they can control. Students find it easier to criticize the speaker as opposed to the speaker’s message (Imhof, 1998).
  • Effective listening is associated with school success, but not with any major personality dimensions (Bommelje, Houston, & Smither, 2003).
  • Students report greater listening comprehension when they use the metacognitive strategies of asking pre-questions, interest management, and elaboration strategies (Imhof, 2001).
  • Students self-report less listening competencies after listening training than before. This could be because students realize how much more there is to listening after training (Ford, Wolvin, & Chung, 2000).
  • Listening and nonverbal communication training significantly influences multicultural sensitivity (Timm & Schroeder, 2000).

 

TimeSpentListeningCommunicating-2015

 

* The International Listening Association promotes the study, development,
and teaching of listening and the practice of effective listening skills  and
techniques. ILA promotes effective listening by establishing a network of
professionals exchanging information including teaching methods, training
experiences and materials, and pursuing research as listening affects
humanity in business, education, and intercultural/international relations.

 

 

10 important skills for active listening — from educatorstechnology.com

Excerpt:

 

 

Effective Listening — with Tatiana Kolovou and Brenda Bailey-Hughes — from lynda.com

Course description:
Listening is a critical competency, whether you are interviewing for your first job or leading a Fortune 500 company. Surprisingly, relatively few of us have ever had any formal training in how to listen effectively. In this course, communications experts Tatiana Kolovou and Brenda Bailey-Hughes show how to assess your current listening skills, understand the challenges to effective listening (such as distractions!), and develop behaviors that will allow you to become a better listener—and a better colleague, mentor, and friend.

Topics include:

  • Recalling details
  • Empathizing
  • Avoiding distractions and the feeling of being overwhelmed
  • Clarifying your role
  • Using attentive nonverbal cues
  • Paraphrasing what was said
  • Matching emotions and mirroring

 

 

How to stop talking and start listening to your employees — from inc.com by Will Yakowicz
As a leader, you’re bound to be talking a lot, but you can’t forget to give others a chance to speak their mind.

 

 

 

—————————

Addendum on 2/13/15:

  • Wake-up call: How to really listen — from irishtimes.com by Sarah Green
    Insights from the Harvard Business Review into the world of work
    Excerpt:

    “It can be stated, with practically no qualification,” Ralph Nichols and Leonard Stevens wrote in a 1957 article in Harvard Business Review, “that people in general do not know how to listen. They have ears that hear very well, but seldom have they acquired the necessary aural skills which would allow those ears to be used effectively for what is called listening. ”

    In a study of thousands of students and hundreds of business people, they found that most retained only half of what they heard – and this immediately after they had heard it. Six months later, most people only retained 25 per cent.

    It all starts with actually caring what other people have to say, argues Christine Riordan, provost and professor of management at the University of Kentucky.

    Listening with empathy consists of three specific sets of behaviours.

 

 

Psalm 143:8 New International Version (NIV) — from biblegateway.com

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I entrust my life.

 

Romans 5:18-19 [The Message]

Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.

 

 

Merry Christmas all!

 

From Luke 2:1-40

The Birth of Jesus

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

 

Apparition-to-the-Shepherds

 

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

21 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.

Jesus Presented in the Temple

22 When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”

25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
         you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
30 For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31     which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
         and the glory of your people Israel.”

33 The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

36 There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38 Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

39 When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. 40 And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.

 

Romans 11:33-36

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
    How unsearchable his judgments,
    and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
    Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God,
    that God should repay them?”
36 For from him and through him and for him are all things.
    To him be the glory forever! Amen.

 

iPad Art: The Majestic Forgiver — from ipadinsight.com

Excerpt:

It’s titled ‘The majestic forgiver’ and is the work of Woon Tien David Chong. Here are the artist’s own words on this iPad painting:

Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

 

Majectic-Forgiver-iPad-Painting_thumb

 

 

Hebrews 1:5-13 (NIV)

For to which of the angels did God ever say,

“You are my Son;
    today I have become your Father”[a]?

Or again,

“I will be his Father,
    and he will be my Son”[b]?

And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says,

“Let all God’s angels worship him.”[c]

In speaking of the angels he says,

“He makes his angels spirits,
    and his servants flames of fire.”[d]

But about the Son he says,

“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever;
    a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
    therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
    by anointing you with the oil of joy.”[e]

10 He also says,

“In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth,
    and the heavens are the work of your hands.
11 They will perish, but you remain;
    they will all wear out like a garment.
12 You will roll them up like a robe;
    like a garment they will be changed.
But you remain the same,
    and your years will never end.”[f]

13 To which of the angels did God ever say,

“Sit at my right hand
    until I make your enemies
    a footstool for your feet”[g]?

 

 

DSC-OilPaintingofGorgeousFallTree-Oct2014

 

 

 

 

Luke 24:32 NIV

They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

 

Last week I attended the 20th Annual Online Learning Consortium International Conference.  While there, I was inspired by an excellent presentation entitled, A Disruptive Innovation: MSU’s Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse – Are You Ready to Survive a New Way of Learning?   The four team members from Michigan State University included:

  • Glenn R. Stutzky | Course Instructor
  • Keesa V. Muhammad | Instructional Designer
  • Christopher Irvin | Instructional Designer
  • Hailey Mooney | Course Librarian

Check out the intro clip on the website about the course:

 

MSUZombie-Oct2014

 

From the description for the presentation:

This session highlights MSU’s award winning, groundbreaking online course that fuses social theory, filmmaking, social media, and viral marketing while students survive an apocalyptic event. http://zombie.msu.edu/

MSU created and used powerful digital storytelling and multimedia to overlay real, experiential, immersive learning. Important content was relayed, but in a way that drew upon your emotions, your ability to solve problems and navigate in a world where you didn’t have all of the information, your ability to work with others, and more.

“This innovative course integrates current research and science on catastrophes and human behavior together with the idea of a zombie apocalypse. In doing so, we actively engage with students as they think about the nature, scope, and impact of catastrophic events on individuals, families, societies, civilizations, and the Earth itself.”

“Our innovative approach to teaching and learning features: students as active participants, the instructor becomes the facilitator, storytelling replaces lectures, zombies become the catalyst of teaching, a “zombrarian” (librarian) drives research, and the students emerge as digital storytellers as a way of assessing their own learning.”

Others outside MUS have found out about the course and have requested access to it. As a result of this, they’ve opened it up to non-credit seeking participants and now various people from police forces, Centers for Disease Control, and others are able to take the course. To make this learning experience even more accessible, the cost has been greatly reduced: from $1600+ to just $500. (So this talented team is not only offering powerful pedagogies, but also significant monetary contributions to the university as well.)

For me, the key thing here is that this course represents what I believe is the direction that’s starting to really pull ahead of the pack and, if done well, will likely crush most of the other directions/approaches.  And that is the use of teams to create, deliver, teach, and assess content – i.e., team-based learning approaches.

So many of the sessions involved professional development for professors and teachers – and much of this is appropriate. However, in the majority of cases, individual efforts aren’t enough anymore.  Few people can bring to the table what a talented, experienced group of specialists are able to bring.  Individual efforts aren’t able to compete with team-based content creation and delivery anymore — and this is especially true online, whereby multiple disciplines are immediately invoked once content hits the digital realm.

In this case, the team was composed of:

  • The professor
  • Two Instructional Designers
  • and a librarian

The team:

  • Developed websites
  • Designed their own logo
  • Marketed the course w/ a zombie walking around campus w/ brochures and a walking billboard
  • Used a Twitter stream
  • Used a tool called Pensu for their students’ individual journals
  • Made extensive use of YouTube and digital storytelling
  • Coined a new acronym called MOLIE – multimedia online learning immersive experience
  • Used game-like features, such as the development of a code that was found which revealed key information (which was optional, but was very helpful to those who figured it out).  The team made it so that the course ended differently for each group, depending upon what the teams’ decisions were through the weeks
  • Used some 3D apps to make movies more realistic and to create new environments
  • Continually presented new clues for students to investigate.  Each team had a Team Leader that posted their team’s decisions on YouTube.

They encouraged us to:
THINK BIG!  Get as creative as you can, and only pull back if the “suits” make you!  Step outside the box!  Take risks!  “If an idea has life, water it. Others will check it out and get involved.”

In their case, the idea originated with an innovative, risk-taking professor willing to experiment – and who started the presentation with the following soliloquy:

Syllabi are EVIL

Syllabi are EVIL and they must die!
Listen to me closely and I’ll tell you why.
Just want students to know what is known?
See what’s been seen?
Go – where we’ve been going?
Then the Syllabus is your friend,
cuz you know exactly where you’ll end.
But if you want to go somewhere new,
see colors beyond Red, Green, and Blue.
Then take out your Syllabus and tear-it-in-half,
now uncertainty has become your path.
Be not afraid because you’ll find,
the most amazing things from Creative Minds,
who have been set free to FLY,
once untethered from the Syllabi.

Glenn Stutzky
Premiered at the 2014
Online Learning Consortium International Conference
October 29, 2014

 

 

They started with something that wasn’t polished, but it’s been an iterative approach over the semesters…and they continue to build on it.

I congratulated the team there — and do so again here. Excellent, wonderful work!

 


By the way, what would a creative movie-like trailer look like for your course?


 

 

From DSC:
Here are two really interesting pieces of scripture.  Seldomly do I read where the LORD Himself is amazed by something.  But note His being amazed in these cases — and they both involve the topic of faith (one on the negative side of things and one on the positive side of things; emphasis mine):

Mark 6:4-6

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Luke 7:8-10

8 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

9 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” 10 Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.

 

Other examples from scripture:

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Galatians 3:5

So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?

Luke 17:19

Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Mark 5:24-34

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’

32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

 Luke 18:42-43

42 Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” 43 Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.

 

 

From DSC:
This posting has a spectrum of perspectives/content on it.  First some faith-based items:


 

VisionsOfVocation-2014

Description

Is it possible to know the world and still love the world? Of all the questions we ask about our calling, this is the most difficult. From marriages to international relations, the more we know, the harder it is to love. We become cynics or stoics, protecting our hearts from the implications of what we know. But what if the vision of vocation can be recovered—allowing us to step into the wounds of the world and for love’s sake take up our responsibility for the way the world turns out? For decades Steve Garber has come alongside a wide range of people as they seek to make sense of the world and their lives. With him we meet leaders from the Tiananmen Square protest who want a good reason to still care about China. We also meet with many ordinary people in ordinary places who long for their lives to matter:

  • Jonathan who learned he would rather build houses than study history
  • Todd and Maria who adopted creative schedules so they could parent better and practice medicine
  • D.J. who helped Congress move into the Internet Age
  • Robin who spends her life on behalf of urban justice
  • Hans who makes hamburgers the way they are meant to be made
  • Susan who built a home business of hand-printing stationary using a letterpress
  • Santiago who works with majority-world nations in need of capital
  • George who has given years to teaching students to learn things that matter most
  • Claudius and Deirdre whose openhearted home has always been a place for people
  • Dan who loves Wyoming, the place, its people and its cows

Vocation is when we come to know the world in all its joy and pain and still love it. Vocation is following our calling to seek the welfare of the world we live in. And in helping the world to flourish, strangely, mysteriously, we find that we flourish too. Garber offers a book for everyone everywhere—for students, for parents, for those in the arts, in the academy, in public service, in the trades and in commerce—for all who want to discover the virtue of vocation.

 

From DSC:
Some quotes from the book:

 

knowing-what-you-know---august-2014

 

“It is possible to get all A’s and still flunk life.”

 

“From mime artists in Paris, to attorneys walking the killing fields of Rwanda, to young, eager human rights activists in Washington, to graduate students at at Yale, how does one learn  to see with the eyes of the heart, to see oneself as responsible for the way the world is and isn’t? Not a cheap question, and there are no cheap answers.”

 

 


From DSC:
The above book was recommended to me by the Director of CIC NetVUE, Dr. Shirley Roels.  For more information about CIC NetVUE, see the items below:


 

CIC-NetVUE-Aug2014

 

NetVUE is a nationwide network of colleges and universities committed to enriching the intellectual and theological exploration of vocation among undergraduate students.

The purposes of NetVUE are to:
  • Deepen the understanding of the intellectual and theological dimensions of vocational exploration;
  • Examine the role of vocational exploration in a variety of institutional contexts;
  • Share knowledge, best practices, and reflection on experiences across participating campuses;
  • Develop a network for sustaining an extended program in the intellectual and theological exploration of vocation; and
  • Facilitate the incorporation of additional colleges and universities into this enterprise.

 

 


Now, for some items that are not (necessarily) faith-related:


 

Blackboard Debuts Free College and Career Guidance App — from thejournal.com by Joshua Bolkan

Excerpt:

Blackboard has a released a free mobile app, Job Genie, designed to help students explore career paths and college options.”The app is a result of qualitative research with students that indicated a large amount of apprehension around key academic decisions, such as picking a school, major or career path,” according to a news release. “Designed to be a non-threatening way to explore various education and job options, the app uses casual language and aesthetics to reinforce that these choices are part of a journey and that students should not feel locked into a single recommendation.”

 

JobGenie-Blackboard-August2014

 

 

 


 

 

 

BeEmployedWhenYouGraduate-Huer

 

Be Employed When You Gradate –a book by Jonathan Blake Huer (2014)

Excerpt:

College isn’t about getting a job; it’s about earning a degree. So, when do students learn how to find meaningful employment? From choosing a major to negotiating a job offer, author and educator, Jonathan Blake Huer, offers his perspective to finding your way through today’s job market in his first book, Be Employed When You Graduate.

The advice and exercises in each chapter offer an honest and practical guide to setting measurable professional goals in college, and how to transform those experiences into internships, freelance positions and post-graduate jobs.

 
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